Draft:Battle of Naga

Battle of Naga
Part of the 1944–1945 Philippine Campaign and the Pacific Theater of World War II
An aerial view of pre-war Naga taken in April 7, 1935.
Date 9 — 12 April 1945 Location Naga, Philippines 13°37′N 123°11′E Result Allied victory Naga liberated
Belligerents
Commonwealth of the Philippines United States	Japan Republic of the Philippines (Second Republic)
Commanders and leaders
Elias Angeles Juan Q. Miranda Leon Aureus Ennis Whitehead	Shizuo Yokoyama Kenishi Sumi
Units involved
Ground forces Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit Camp Isarog Guerilla Unit Aerial forces 5th Air Force	41st Army Shimbu Detachment

The Battle of Naga (Filipino: Labanan ng Naga; Japanese: 名が の 戦い, romanized: Naga no Tatakai; Central Bikol: Laban kan Naga; 9 April—12 April 1945) was a series of battles around and inside Naga during the Japanese occupation of Bicol in Southern Luzon within Camarines Sur during the Second World War. It was mostly fought by guerilla forces of the Philippines against Japanese troops stationed in Camarines Sur and Naga, the capital city of Camarines Sur in 1945.

The three-day liberation was a collective effort of the chiefly Bicolano guerilla forces, such as the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit formed by Elias Madrid and led by Major Juan Q. Miranda and Leon Aureus, and the Camp Isarog Guerilla Unit, the local Philippine Constabulary, and strategic bombing from the 5th Air Force to clean the 41st Army (Shimbu Detachment) out of the Isarog district and eventually out of the Bicol Peninsula in Southern Luzon. It also recuperated the spearhead of the 5th Cavalry Regiment from Manila with the 158th Regimental Combat Team from Albay, where first contact was met in the nearby town of Pili on March 1945.

On May 1, 1945, once the 5th Cavalry from Manila had entered Naga, the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit had already swept urban Naga clear of Japanese resistance a month prior.

Background

Japanese pre-war presence

In 1936, Camarines Sur had reportedly registered a substantial number of Japanese residents, particularly shopkeepers in Naga. Among the prominent Japanese establishments present in Naga before 1941 were the Filipino Bazaar and the K Mori refreshment parlor, formerly renowed for their monggo con hielo.

Initial reaction to imminent invasion

On December 7, 1941, the intriguing news of Pearl Harbour and the retaliatory declaration of war generated civil unrest, inciting protracted widespread panic buying among Naga's residents, lasting as far as the initial Japanese occupation of Naga.

Naguenos firmly believed that a Japanese invasion would be decisively repelled through the joint forces of the Philippine Army, Philippine Constabulary and the United States Army Forces in the Far East within the span of two months. This collective anticipation was attested by the anecdotal panic daily buying of short-term stocking of household provisions among Naga's residents. Accounts reported further escalations leading to violent plundering, particularly perpetrated against the prosecuted Japanese, and even Chinese, owned businesses on the platform of sheer retribution. Fomented fears of a permanent Japanese occupation exacerbated the daily looting, frequenting plunders of hardware material, namely crude oil, petroleum, and gasoline.

On December 12, the aforementioned Japanese nationals who owned establishments were promptly detained in Naga's Provincial Jail (now the Cathedral Yard) on the account of espionage as they all had unanimously donned high ranking Imperial Japanese Army officer uniforms in light of the IJN's 16th Division 'Kimura Detachment's landing in Legazpi. Among the detainees was Kubota, a palay agent of the Greek businessman named Ciriaco Chunaco; Suga, the owner of the Naga Bazaar; others simply remembered as Kitahara; Berto Nishiyama; among others. Their primal military objective was to conduct key ground intelligence for the present Japanese advance of the Kimura Detachment that had just landed in Legazpi, set forth for Camarines Sur, notably in the city of Naga.

As news became increasingly bleaker, parents wired their children studying in Manila to pack for home and to join them in the organized evacuation into the nearby municipalities of Canaman, Magarao, Calabanga and Milaor lest the Kempetai restrict inter-regional emigration. The provincial and local officials of Camarines Sur also had an overtly anti-Japanese stance and, seething the prospect of governing under the Japanese, sought refuge elsewhere to eventually instate a provisional governance. Gov. Ramon Imperial famously went into hiding, refusing to welcome the Japanese advance into Camarines Sur and the capital of Naga.

The small constabulary detachment in Naga under a major was in a state of confusion as he had not received clear instructions except a brief coded telegram saying:

"Do not send any more messages in plain language. Send everything in code."

In spite of the Japanese advance into Quezon, 250 volunteering Bicolano trainees and reservists were mobilized in nearby Pili to join the contingent bound in the defense of Lucena. Students of various schools in Camarines Sur, such as Pili Agricultural School, Ateneo de Naga and Colegio de Sta. Isabel, were alerted of the imminent Japanese occupation, and school administrators nervously assembled all records for safekeeping and padlocked the rooms of the school for an indefinite vacation.

This account of a young student in the Pili Agricultural School (now CBSUA) condensed the trepidated hesitancy of Camarines Sur in the imminence of invasion:

"I was still at the Camarines Sur Agricultural School, having my clearance. Students and faculty members of the said school were at a loss as to what was the best thing to do, what attitude to take and what way to turn to for help. The teachers ordered the students to go home to their respective place of residence. I abandoned my request for clearance and prepared to go home, passing over the rice field at the foot of mount Isarog to the barrio of Mabatobato, Pili, Camarines Sur, walking with a distance of almost 12 kilometers from the Agricultural School to the said barrio of Mabatobato. Reaching Mabatobato, now the Municipality of Ocampo, Camarines Sur, a PUJ vehicle driven by Augusto Moran of Goa, Camarines Sur, bound for Naga with several passengers, I signalled to stop and informed him not to proceed to Naga, because the Japanese Army were advancing to Camarines Sur, and the Philippine Army were utilizing all vehicles entering Naga bound for Camarines Norte where they prepared foxholes along the hilly road for their ambush of the advancing Japanese soldiers bound for Manila. Turning back the vehicle for Goa, Camarines Sur, I took advantage to get in the vehicle in order to reach Goa immediately. The three reconnaissance Japanese Air Force planes, flown high above the province of Camarines Sur from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m."

The account of a Spanish national's daughter, Maria Dolores Tapia del Rio, then an interna at Colegio de Sta. Isabel, recalled the college's rife of uneasiness:

"One could sense something strange in the air. The nuns, with both grave and serious face, were less strict and allowed more flexibility in the performance of our daily activities in school. There were more frequent visits to the chapel and mass was heard with more fervour. Something very serious was happening outside the walls of the school."

On December 13, Japanese troops arrived at Pili Proper without encountering any opposition, as all the previously eligible recruits became elements in the Lucena contingent bound.

Japanese invasion of Naga

On December 14, the 16th Division, 'Kimura Detachment,' entered the capital of Naga without any civil hostility. Monico Imperial, the de facto governor entrusted by his brother, Gov. Ramon Imperial, formally recognized and granted the 16th Division, at the Naga Provincial Capitol's Office of the Governor, full authorization of Camarines Sur.

At 7 AM on the 14th, an olive drab convoy, consisting of mechanized units mounted on Type 94 6-wheel trucks, Type 95 mini-trucks, Type 97 4-wheel trucks, Type 1 6-wheel trucks and Type 2 heavy trucks, horse-drawn artillery pieces and materiel, and foot soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army's 16th Division, marched towards Rizal Plaza along Panganiban Avenue from Pili via Highway 1 (Route 1). The Japanese convoy disembarked on the surrounding streets of Rizal Plaza with heavy congestion, squeezing some elements out to dismount on further sidestreets and impertinent principal avenues.

After the disorganization, an assembly area of Japanese ranks rallied at Rizal Plaza. The incessance of Japanese activity led to some of Naga's remaining yet hesitant residents to pile into Rizal Park. One of the bilingual Japanese officers on the base of the Rizal Monument addressed the cohort with reassurance and advisory, stating; "You should all return home and resume your normal lives. They (Japanese) had come to protect the people, and that the Americans had fled and would never return."

The Japanese officers, informed of their interned compatriots, proceeded to the Naga Provincial Jail and promptly released them. Among those previously held in custody were Kubota, Suga, Condo; the manager of Naga Bazaar, and Mori, the owner of the Mongo Ice Parlor of the city.

On December 15, after legislating total Japanese hegemony overnight, ratifying the local Kempetai constabulary, and satisfied with the civil submission, the Japanese occupied the newly opened private Jesuit school of Ateneo de Naga (now on Naga Parochial School), which originally planned to open their Jesuit faculty house and the Main Building (now on Ateneo De Naga University Main Campus) on that exact date.

Except for Sergio Adriatico, the only Filipino among the Jesuit Brothers, the Japanese arrested the eight American Jesuits, composed of three priests and five young scholastics, namely: Fathers Francis Burns, Joe Bittner, Mat Reilly, and Scholastics Richard McSorley, Ed Sullivan, Albert Grau, John Nicholson, and Gregory Horgan.

An account from McSorley briefly recalled their arrest:

"We were taken in an ALATCO bus at gunpoint down to the city jail. As we passed by the houses, students from Ateneo looked out the windows and some waved to us. The Japanese soldiers in the back of the bus held guns ready to shoot us."

After securing control of major installations in Naga Proper through acquisition policy, and having set up their procedural garrisons on the roadsides of both Concepcion Grande and Milaor, the bulk of the 16th Division, 'Kimura Detachment,' continued its advance to the north to aid the Battle of Manila.

On December 19, the IJA's 16th Division had reached Sipocot with little to no resistance.

On December 21, as the Imperial Japanese Army was nearing Camarines Norte, the 16th Division encountered stiff resistance from two Philippine Army companies led by an American officer, 1st Lt. Matt Dobrinic, north of Sipocot (now Bicol National Park).

During the years under occupation, the Japanese tried all means to persuade the townsfolk. When a vast majority of the Nagueños saw through their rhetoric, notably the voracious influentials, most refused to pledge allegiance to the authority. The Japanese garrison in Naga and in nearby municipalities became wary of their stubborn stance to submission. In light of the local frustration, Japanese soldiers started to threateningly brandish their weapons in front of civilians. The Japanese garrisons started a protracted campaign of atrocities by torturing and executing the populaces in Naga and beyond.

Formation of guerilla units in Camarines Sur

Origins of the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit (TVGU)

Incendiarism on the last train in Bicol

On the morning of February 27, 1942, three unidentified individuals reportedly set fire to the last train of the Bicol Express fleet at Sipocot. Two Japanese soldiers, who were assigned in delivering rice supply from Libmanan to Naga, and a local civilian perished in the self-contained train car fire. The Japanese authorities tied the act of arson to irregular insurrection, rewarding a hefty bounty for those who could identify and detain the suspected perpetrators. Captain Juan Miranda, Lt. Simeon Ayala, and Leon Aureus, the unidentified suspects, hastily regrouped back at Aureus' home in Libmanan.

A week prior, due to the Japanese restriction of unmandated transfer of hardware, Leon Aureus smuggled a full-gallon gas can from the Moll family-owned mines in Lagonoy. On the 20th, Leon Aureus, a laborer at Moll Mines, tended the mine's administrative office with his pregnant wife and her brother while the proprietors and his colleagues had frenetically fled back home a day before. On the next day, they sought for a boat home for Libmanan. Leon firmly instructed Elen, his wife's youngest brother, to discard the can into the Lagonoy Bay, their route toward the Bicol River, lest the authorities were to pursue the sailboat. They arrived at Libmanan after two days of sailing. Then, on the 24th, Leon Aureus' wife gave birth to their first son, Vicente, naming him after Leon's father, a former alcade mayor of Libmanan. In the afternoon of the same day, Aureus made for Naga to orchestrate the objective, guising it as a meeting for a rakkan joint venture in Naga.

Before formal creation

Leon Aureus invited Elias Madrid, an affluent anti-Japanese advocate friend of his, over at his Libmanan house, prior to the his stint at the mines, to discuss the position of Overall Commander, though Madrid declined due to his military naivete, instead vouching for his nephew, Juan Miranda, a finance sergeant in the Philippine Army at Ragan Barracks, Albay, to which Aureus agreed.

Leon predominantly encompassed the soon-to-be movement, writing the Declaration of Principles of the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit (TVGU) months prior to its formal organization. Being ardently steadfast for Bicol's liberation as a well known intellectual, he was often cited as the unit's Mabini.

'Tangcong Vaca' was coined from the mountain in Libmanan of the same name (literally meaning, 'cow's hump') as most of TVGU's founding members were from the surrounding locality. Their first camp was located overlooking a strategic pass, facing the Ragay Gulf adjacent to the Camarines Norte and Katagalogan mountains.

Formation of the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit (TVGU)

Formal creation and recruitment of TVGU

Then, finally, on March 8, 1942, the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit (TVGU) was formally organized at Sitio Calinigan of Barangay Umalo, Libmanan by co-founders Elias Madrid, the finance officer, Leon Aureus, the executive officer and Juan Miranda, the commanding officer. They also inducted Canaman's mayor, Damaso Requejo as the organization's intelligence officer. The first recruits before founding included Simeon Ayala, who was a former Philippine Constabulary soldier in Libmanan, Honorato Osio, and Nicolas Peñaredondo, whose poem titled “Laban Can Libmanan Contra sa Hapon,” remains an invaluable documentary source on the TVGU’s operations.

The total officers and members who were present on March 8 were:

Leon Aureus, Elias Madrid, Raymundo Martinez, Juan Miranda, Honorato Osio, Simeon Ayala, Nicolas Penaredondo, Eliseo Peneredondo, Aproniano Penaredondo, Manuel Recto, Adelo Ramos, Joaquin Ramos, Elias Villasenor, Amado Ignacio, Jaime Senardes, Jose Paglinawan, Sancho Anadilla, Tranquilino Avila, Loreto Francisco, Salvador Medina, Wenceslao Arroyo, Sabino Talay, Jose Moso, Agaton Penaredondo, Mariano Aureus, Rev. Jesus Alvarez.

In the days that followed, the organizational attention was primarily directed in covert recruitment of more guerilla soldiers in nearby municipalities of Libmanan, Canaman, Pamplona, Naga and beyond.

From March 9 to 11, Elias Villaseñor, Gregorio Fortaleza, Severo Miranda, Porfirio de Castro, Pedro and Laurencio Adebante, and Rufo Aben were inducted into the organization.

Members of the guerilla force often dragged their relatives into the fray as to avoid any possible confrontation with the Japanese authorities. Leon Aureus invited his brother, Col. Mariano S. Aureus and wife, Angeles J. Aureus, into the underground front with him in the organization.

In the words of Leon Aureus' wife, Angeles Javier Aureus:

"Leon became active in organizing the Bicol guerrilla resistance movement in the province. He organized everything, including the boy scouts. During this time, a lot of Japanese forces had arrived in the towns and took control of Naga, the center of the province. They were so brutal, torturing and killing people suspected of connections with the guerrillas. They were responsible for a lot of looting, and the local people suffered so much under their rule.

Leon was very busy contacting guerrillas in other towns, collecting arms and ammunition from people who had them. He also appointed barrio captains in every barrio and got people to join the guerrilla resistance."

Operations of the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit (TVGU)

Guerilla activity of Tangcong Vaca from '42-44

Under the Declaration of Principles of the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU), written by Leon Aureus even before the organization's formal founding, the combat tactics adopted by the Tangcong Vaca were fixed doctrinal guerilla warfare.

This portion is an excerpt of Leon Aureus' relative, Col. Mariano S. Aureus' memoirs of their tactics, constituted by the Declaration of Principles of the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU):

"Underground fighting requires objectives to orient around weakening the solid force through one-sided attrition, namely destroying the Japaneses' moving assets. Positional warfare against the easily replenished Japanese garrisons should be avoided since we have no auxiliary force, no rear, no line of supplies and communication. We shall prioritize self-assertion and intuition among the guerillas, providing the grunts elaborate plans for every calculated possibility or scenario lest the situation of combat shifted. We, the Tangcong Vaca guerillas, will primarily emphasize on the element of surprise, as the main attacking force would always be diminished in comparison with the numerically superior garrisons."

The Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit's first coordinated operation is cited to be the incident that occured on February 27, 1942, when founders Captain Juan Miranda, Lt. Simeon Ayala, and Lt. Leon Aureus burned a train in Sipocot, pivotal to fend off communications and further reinforcements from the Naga garrison for a lenghty period of time.

On 13 March, 1942, a group of demolitioneers led by Jaime Senardes blew up the concrete bridge in Labao, Libmanan to cut the overland transportation link between Libmanan and Naga. This was

One week later, Miranda in Tiniguiban, Pamplona, resulting in two casualties on their side.

On April 11, 1942 the Balongay barge requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Army Railways and Shipping Section at Calabanga Wharf (now the Calabanga Provincial Port) used for transporting Japanese garrison reinforcements and new military armaments from Manila as an alternative route from Pasacao, were destroyed by a platoon of Tangcong Vaca guerillas.

On April 27, the Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit was dispatched to Libmanan to demolish the National Rice and Corn Corporation (NARIC) bodega in Libmanan owned by a staunch proprietor, Doña Flaviana Ocampo. The Japanese Association was using the property in milling thousands of cavans (98.28 litres per cavan in metric) daily, replenishing the rations of Imperial Japanese Army garrisons in Naga and elsewhere in urban Camarines Sur. The captured surplus of cavans were surreptiously handed out throughout the underground market of Naga. Meanwhile, the TVGU stockpiled a quarter in undisclosed deposits and warehouses in nearby Pamplona, Canaman, Gainza and Libmanan for future rationing. Ocampo was interned after the demolishment, with the officers warning her that she will be accordingly dealt with lest she continues her collaboration with the Japanese Army.

On April 30, the fortnightly resistance paper Voice of Freedom in mimeograph form published by the TVGU and edited by Leon Sa. Aureus under the pen name Rosan Eulanes came out with its first issue.

On October 9, 70 Japanese soldiers were killed at Nagboton, Malinao, Libmanan.

On November

On May 2, 1943, 63 Japanese soldiers and 35 PC Japanese sympathizers were killed at Nayog, Gabi, Sipocot.

Liberation of Naga (1942)

On March 22, 1942, during a meeting of TVGU’s top officials just a day after the engagement at Tiniguiban, they conferred on the prospect of recapturing Naga. They, however, dismissed such propositions and spontaneous scrapped it off the guerilla's agenda, claiming a liberation of Naga without American utility would be left in vain.

The Camp Isarog Guerrilla however, a unit led by Faustino Flor and Teofilo Padua in Upper Partido, were more steadfast in liberating Naga despite the centralized Japanese units garrisoned. In early April, they had rearmed the Partido-based guerillas while devising a campaign for the liberation of Central Bicol.

On April 30, after temporarily securing the perimeters around Iriga, the Camp Isarog Guerilla proceeded north via Highway 1 to liberate Naga. On the same day, the TVGU officers attending a marriage at San Nicolas in the evening were completely unaware of the manuever, only being notified by the Canaman-bound messenger, Ceferino Francisco.

On May 1, the guerrillas entered the capital of Naga through Panganiban Avenue. In spite of Tabuco and Puente de Naga, (the present-day Lt. Delfin Rosales Bridge), Naga's key bridges, remaining heavily defended from the partitioned force of the Japanese, Flor and Padua's unit advanced through the Colgante Bridge, near Colegio de Sta. Isabel and the Episcopal Palace.

The Camp Isarog Guerrillas garnered all the manpower they could, mustering even a few Aeta archers from Isarog. The Tangcong Vaca Guerilla Unit followed shortly in the afternoon, deploying from the southeast of Naga.

On May 2, reticent guerrilla units emerged from neighboring barrios and agreed to collaborate with the Camp Isarogs and the numerically superior Tangcong Vaca. Ricardo Gordenker’s group from Carolina, an upland barrio in Naga, Jose Hernandez’ unit from Cabusao, and Felix Espiritu’s men from Camaligan encroached on the capital. While allied to the TVGU, they allegedly committed unjustified arson, often considered as unnecessary and Draconian in nature. The combined forces of these guerrilla units of the province nevertheless recaptured Naga.

On the early morning of May 3, Naga was liberated from the Imperial Japanese Army's 16th Division's series of garrisons. A haphazard victory parade, joined by civilians, wound the downtown area. Despite the victory, both sides suffered significant casualties. Camp Isarog lost a key official in Cecillo Bimeda who was killed “by a sniper’s bullet as he tried to cross the tennis court a forehand drive away north of the Capitol building” while the Tangcong Vaca lost Alvaro Marquez, a native of Tigaon and a certain Lt. Alpapara of Iriga, who was killed while storming Tabuco.